The Vagina Monologues--for Egypt

The Christian Science Monitor recently spotlighted a project put on by a club at AUC to highlight some of the challenges women in Egypt face. Over the past two years, The Bussy Project

"has collected stories from Egyptian women about some of the country's most taboo topics, including street harassment, sexual abuse, divorce, female circumcision, and the confusion that arises in a culture that discourages male-female interaction but makes women's primary social responsibilities marriage and childbearing."

I have mentioned street harassment in previous postings. It is virtually impossible to walk anywhere without having men mumble comments into your ear as you walk past or shout things at you from the other side of the street. These range from "Wow! Wow! Wow! Niiiice!""and "You come with me? I give you 100 pound." I have been told by native speakers that some of the Arabic comments are quite a bit dirtier--I suppose that is one instance in which the language barrier is quite welcome.

I know that foreign women are subject to a bit more harassment than average as we don't blend in and therefore attract more attention, but this problem is by no means limited to ex-pats. However, I was surprised to see it listed here as most Egyptians pretend that it does not exist, or that wearing a head-scarf proves your respectability and eliminates the harrasment. This is not the case, and I'm impressed that this project calls a spade a spade in the face of a lot of cultural pressure to ignore the situation or blame women for creating the problem by being sexually tempting.

The article states:

Project participants say they are tired of women's issues being ignored or pushed aside in Egypt, but are also upset at the way that many in the West think about Arab and Muslim women.

"I'm passive, weak, uneducated, veiled from head to toe, one of his four wives, work in the kitchen all day," says "Muslim Woman." "That's what you think, right?"

"My liberation won't come from the one who has oppressed me – bringing me democracy?" retorts her companion on the stage. "You think you're really gonna send Condi to tell me how to be free?"

While the directors cite The Vagina Monologues as their inspiration, the use of character names like "Muslim Woman" reminds me a lot of the concept behind the Broadway show Avenue Q, with it's confrontation of stereotypes in character names like "Christmas Eve" and "Princeton," and songs with titles like "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist."

Most importantly, though, in a country where 44 percent of the women are illiterate and 90 percent of married women have experienced some form of female circumcision/genital mutilation, feminists still have a lot of progress to make. It's good to see them finding a voice, and great to see international coverage of that fact.

The original article is here.